Old Shanghai was dying, losing between three and six streets a day. The modern city was strangling it among its many skyscrapers. Soon, in a few years at most, it will have disappeared. Yet, through ... [+]
Nights are lonely in the urban jungle. There's no crickets, but creaky streetlamps hum. There's no stars, but the roads blind you. There's no wild animals, but its advised to never look in any strange men in the eyes — they'll take it as a challenge. Luckily, under the buzzing of this bus stop at a cold campus corner at midnight, the only way scoundrels or specters could sneak up on Maudy is if she spent too long reading the flyer in her hands.
"Schemantics Sematary Cleanup - Volunteer's Wanted Dead or Alive!" Official campus posters aren't scratched in plain Sharpie on scrap paper, but this was too good to leave for the custodial machines to shred. Had she not picked this up, Maudy would be pacing her cage-sized dorm room, feigning the will to study after weeks of burning cigarettes at both ends. Even a box-with-a-stick-on-a-string scam sounded miles more refreshing. That it spelled "cemetery" like a horror movie and offered a suspiciously hefty reward was just bonus.
The bus rumbled up, headlights beaming from a city-sponsored chassis gilded chrome. This place was going to the cyber dogs. Back in Maudy's day, bus drivers would ask what a young woman was doing out alone at this hour. The android didn't so much as glance in acknowledgement.
In kind terms, Theseus Uni — Maudy's madhouse institution — was an archaeological dig. In realistic terms, it's a fossil being hollowed out in the hopes of living up to the rest of town. The campus' black tarp fences looked enviously at the starlight beaming from high rise skyscrapers, reflecting on the metal hides of vehicles below. The entire skyline reached for the heavens, like each architect thought themselves Michelangelo making this stolen land their chapel.
Yet, the light of the bus stop at Schematics Cemetery was on its last legs of life. Sparse street lamps cast the area in a dimness that gave people an excuse not to visit. In truth, the place never was that safe; before it held dead people, it held dead cars. The junkyard was named after the idea of scrap parts. There was a time where entertainment meant watching people squabble over pieces like raccoons in a dumpster. When Maudy strolled up to the remains of its front gate, she met a figure standing 4 foot even and leaning on a too-tall shovel, with scraggly blond hair and snaggly overalls speckled in dirt.
"Hey! Here for the clean up?"
Maudy glanced from the flyer to the stranger, squinting again at the scrawled text. "Are you... ‘Prudence'? Aren't you a little young to be organizing something like this?"
"Aren't you a little young to be telling me what to do, Four-Eyes?"
"...No? Hell, you look fresh out of fifth grade. What are you–"
The kid thrust a shovel into Maudy's arms, scoffing, "I didn't go to school! And I don't care if you did! Long as you can dig a hole, follow me."
The half-forgotten cemetery was still part scrapyard. Its horizon of rusty sedans stacked 6 high and crusty tombstones covered in moss was something an amateur anthropologist would have chipped out of a sepia-toned photo of the Great Depression.
"Don't tell me your idea of ‘cleaning up' is grave robbing," Maudy muttered flatly.
"‘Course not!" Prudence shot her an indignant look. "It's just no one comes by to check out the things people toss out anymore. Can't catch a good night's rest with ‘em."
The first culprit was buried in a gravel pile next to the carcass of a Camry. Maudy stabbed with the shovel diligently, and made a face when the clacking of rocks made way for a mechanical ticking that bloomed into shrill beeping.
"About time!" Prudence laughed, vindicated.
Maudy took the batteries out of the old digital alarm clock, scowling all the while.
The second target was a metallic mound sticking out of a slope of dirt amidst some gravestones like its own unmarked tomb. After Maudy broke through the first layer, a blinding brightness erupted from the earth. The woman grimaced through her fingers to see just the upper half of some discarded construction android, with the spotlight in its chest still as alive as the sun. It drowned out the the city enough to turn the scene into a stageplay. Maudy yelped when its head twitched, mouth opening like a haunted doll. "E-Error. Directive Unfound. Plea-"
Ting! Prudence whistled low when Maudy decapitated the thing with one frantic swing of the shovel. The head bounced into the shadows, and its body shut down — rigor mortis finally setting in. All at once, the duo was plunged back into the diffused glow of distant streetlights.
"Do you play baseball, Four-Eyes?" The child only smirked when the college student wheeled on her with a grimace. "Not the only one of its kind buried here, yanno! Just the only one still asking for help."
Maudy shuddered and threw dirt back on the cadaver rover before following the girl to the last quarry. Prudence directed her to hack at the splindly roots of an dead tree, spraying dirt. The child gave wistful context, "Hound won't stop howling at the moon."
The woman tensed, expecting a real body. Instead, the shovel wrenched from the earth a tiny, boxy robot dog, rusted into statuehood. One of those trendy kids' gifts from Maudy's time. She turned the toy over in her hands incredulously, then threw a pointed look at her company. "...It's got no batteries."
The kid shrugged. "Just take the mutt with you."
To Maudy's concern, she did have to remind Prudence of the offered reward. Thus, she was led to another tombstone, where the girl stomped a foot. "You'll find a box ‘bout 3 feet down. Keep it! Not like I need it."
The ground was toughest here, but scorned student's stubbornness was tougher. Maudy muttered unkindly about half-literate superstitious children until her shovel thunked on something small and wooden. "Kid, I better not find some dead animal in here!" Maudy huffed as she hauled it and herself out of the waist-high hole — only to whirl around in an alarmed glance. Prudence had disappeared while Maudy had her head down. "...God, please don't let it be something that'll get me arrested either."
She pursed her lips when her gaze landed on the grave. Only a "Prude-" was legible from under the moss — one last insult from beyond. Maudy shook her head and cracked open her prize.
Green! Nothing but the dusty faces of Ulysses and Benjamin stared up at her. Maudy slammed the lid back on, instantly furtive. Illegal or not, she wasn't going to pass up a real free Grant. She spent a moment to gingerly tidy up the grave and slip the robot dog inside the box. Afterward, the junkyard didn't see more of her beyond a gleeful whisper, "Rest in peace, Prudence! Never coming back!"
Maudy retreated to the humming lights of the city, shoving an arm between the closing automatic bus doors to buy just enough time to steal a seat. Though she's still alone, she's careful in opening her acquired coffer again. Maudy's brow pinched at the scratched plastic eyes of the petrified toy dog, sitting between her and her treasure like a finger-wagging warden.
Frankly, she didn't need a facsimile of a moral pet pestering her on life choices. The student looked up and around, pondering. Finally, once the bus eased to a stop right back at her campus, Maudy left the dog beside the automaton attendant. Maybe a best friend will soften its cold metal heart. Maybe a best friend will soften its cold metal heart. Meanwhile, the woman slunk back onto her historical college with the cold triumphance of a pirate emulating the likes of a Professor Jones.